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14 April 2026

Tag: Ofsted

Ofsted’s new provider monitoring and subcontracting visits explained

Paul Joyce, one of the inspectorate’s head skills honchos, lays out the thinking behind the two new forms of visit Ofsted will be making in the FE sector Ofsted recently announced it would be conducting two new types of monitoring visit. The first, as announced by HM chief inspector Amanda Spielman last November, are monitoring […]

Ofsted saves £400k with longer grade 2 inspection gap

Ofsted will save around £400,000 during the next academic year by elongating the maximum period between inspections for ‘good’ providers from three to five years, it has told FE Week. This change in inspection policy was revealed in the April edition of the learning and skills inspection handbook. “We estimate that this could potentially save […]

First Ofsted subcontracting visit report criticises Wigan and Leigh College

The first ever report of an Ofsted monitoring visit into subcontracting has found that governors and senior management at Wigan and Leigh College have been too slow to improve performance. The report out today recalled that Paul Joyce, Ofsted’s deputy director for further education and skills, warned last month that the inspectorate planned to focus […]

Ofsted appears to back colleges in Progress 8 battle

The credibility of a major new government progress measure is at stake after a college labelled as one of the worst in the country for teaching 14- to 16-year-olds has been rated ‘outstanding’ for its provision by Ofsted. The watchdog couldn’t praise Leeds City College highly enough for its “direct entry” provision in a report […]

Over two thirds of UTCs rated less than ‘good’ in the last year

More than two thirds of the university technical colleges visited by Ofsted in the last year received ratings that were less than ‘good’, according to FE Week analysis. But the organisation which oversees UTCs has hit back, saying it believes the watchdog’s inspection regime is not designed to measure their performance in the most accurate […]

Barnfield College could lose its apprenticeships provision

Barnfield College has been rated grade four by Ofsted for apprenticeships, which means it will lose the right to offer them under updated government rules. An inspection report out this morning rated it ‘requires improvement’ in all other headline fields, except for adult learning programmes and provision for people with high needs, where it was ‘good’. […]

Stockport College earns its third Ofsted ‘inadequate’ in five years

A college has been hit with its third ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating in the space of just five years. The latest report on Stockport College was published this morning. It was found to be grade four overall and received the worst possible rating for effectiveness of leadership and management; quality of teaching, learning and assessment; outcomes […]

College group giant welcomes move to campus level inspection

The nation’s largest college group has welcomed a change in how it collects data on learners and it is expected to pave the way for campus-level Ofsted inspections. NCG will introduce a new college “campus identifier” field into individualised learner records from 2018/19. The data will identify a “campus within a college group” that is […]

Ofsted accused of waste over inspection for just 7 learners

Ofsted has been accused of wasting scarce resources on an inspection that only took into account seven learners. Leicester-based Train Together was rated ‘good’ overall at its first ever inspection last month. But the two-strong inspection team only took seven learners into account, and they were all directly funded by the Education and Skills Funding […]